University Hospitals Makes Breakthrough in Treatment of Liver Tumors

Jack Landskroner

Contributor

0 CommentsPrint ArticleSubscribe

University Hospitals of Cleveland has made a breakthrough in the treatment of liver cancers which will improve the treatment and possibly the prognosis of cancer patients.

An innovative technique that assaults liver tumors with millions of radioactive beads has been tried for the first time in Northeast Ohio....While it isn't considered a cure, the minimally invasive therapy has been found to reduce tumors more than chemotherapy alone in patients with metastatic colon cancer. Shrinking the tumors to a manageable size gives patients more treatment options, which can help prolong life and, in some cases, even produce a cure, said Dr. Christopher Siegel, an assistant professor of surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center

Even before treatment is provided, however, the timing of diagnosis is a critical factor in treating cancer. Patients must make sure that they choose qualified physicians who maintain high indexes of suspicion in their patients so they can quickly identify and where possible treat the cancer to arrest the growth of cancerous cells. In particular, Doctors must monitor patients whose risk factors are high, including those with a history of cancer in the family, when the patient is or was a smoker, or where they have been exposed to an environment where there are carcinogens (cancer causing agents) present. For those patients who present with signs and symptoms indicative of disease and the red flags are ignored, the delay in diagnosis can be the difference between survival and death.